Five Ways You Can Achieve Higher Performance With Your Teams

Managers and supervisors can spend thousands of dollars attending conferences and completing training programs to learn how to achieve higher performance from their teams.  Yet, there are straightforward strategies any leader can use to make a significant difference in the efficiency, effectiveness, and achievements of the employees they manage.

Get out of their way and give them control.

Employee empowerment may have been a buzzword in the early 2000s, but the most productive employees indeed are those who feel they have control over their jobs.  Empowerment can come in many forms–from allowing employees to organize their own schedules to broadening the spectrum of decision-making ability they have.  The key to making empowerment work well is to hold employees accountable to achieve higher performance.  Successful managers set deadlines, goals, and performance metrics and review their employees’ performance regularly with them.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

The best managers don’t see their jobs as being bosses; instead, they focus on being great coaches.  And one of the most important things a coach does is communicate–frequently and clearly.  Employees need to know what’s expected of them, how their work fits into the larger picture of company strategy, the “why” behind their work assignments, and what they can do differently to perform the work better the next time.  Coaching is also about motivating and encouraging–helping employees feel they can be successful.

Place employees in roles suited for their talents and abilities.

Successful managers are constantly monitoring employee’s performance to assess their strengths and weaknesses.  Yet, they don’t do this to fill out periodic appraisal forms–they do this so they can quickly place employees in roles with responsibilities that best match their abilities.  Sometimes this may be seeing an untapped talent and giving an employee a new position outside of their comfort zone while other times, it means teaming up employees to offset each other’s natural abilities.

Provide a professional work environment.

Consider the planning you placed in designing the environment your customers visit and what components were important such as accessibility, cleanliness, ambiance, comfort, branding, safety, etc.  Those same aspects are important to employees in their workspaces.  Take a look at where your employees spend time and the tools they need, such as ergonomic chairs for desk environments, easy-to-access file cabinets, modern software solutions, operable laptops, clean truck cabs, and even the breakroom.  The physical environment will impact how employees feel, which directly impacts how they think and perform on the job.

Authentically recognize good performance.

Yes, employees work to make money and provide for their families, but at the same time, most employees genuinely want to please their managers, customers, and teammates by doing a good job.  You’ve probably heard the phrase, “what gets measured gets done.”  There’s another equally important phrase, “what gets rewarded gets repeated.”  When managers tell employees how well they’ve performed and how their work positively impacts the company, employees are far more likely to perform at those levels in the future–with or without additional bonuses or financial incentives.  In fact, employees respect managers who publicly give credit to the team members for successfully reaching goals and will work harder for them in the future.

Are you looking for innovative strategies to reach your company’s goals?

At Paradux Media, we are committed to your success.  Whether you’re searching for new ways to promote your products, need help with a redesign of your online or in-person presence, or could use new ideas to achieve higher performance from your teams, we’ve got you covered.  Our team members have a wide range of professional experience in multiple industries to help you with any challenge your business faces.  Got a challenge?  Give us a call, and let’s chat.